SUBJECT: DEFINING RACE AND ETHNICITY DATA

NCES STANDARD: 1-5

PURPOSE: To provide common language to promote uniformity and comparability for the collection and reporting of data on race and ethnicity. This standard is in compliance with the definitions and procedures included in the 1997 revision of the OMB Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 and the U.S. Department of Education Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the Department of Education (Federal Register, Vol. 72, No. 202, 10/19/2008).

KEY TERMS: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, confidentiality, edit, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, public-use data file, White, and survey.

STANDARD 1-5-1: NCES will follow OMB and Department of Education guidelines for definitions of ethnicity and race. This applies both to surveys and to collections of administrative data.

Ethnicity is based on the following categorization:

Hispanic or Latino: A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. The term "Spanish origin" can be used in addition to "Hispanic or Latino."

Race is based in the following five categorizations:

American Indian or Alaska Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. Terms such as "Haitian" or "Negro" can be used in addition to "Black or African American."

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.

White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.

STANDARD 1-5-2: NCES will follow OMB and Department of Education guidelines on the use of a two-question format to collect data on ethnicity and race. The ethnicity question must come first, followed by the question on race. The race question must ask respondents to select one or more of the five racial groups.

The ethnicity question is:

What is this person's ethnicity?

Hispanic or Latino
Not Hispanic or Latino

The race question is:

What is this person's race? Mark one or more races to indicate what this person considers himself/herself to be.

American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
Black or African American
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
White

GUIDELINE 1-5-2A: Generally, data collections will only collect the categories that are listed above in the sample questions. These produce seven reporting categories: Hispanic/Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, White, and Two or more races. These seven are the minimum categories established by OMB, and are the standard adopted by the Department of Education. However, in the case of data collected by NCES from individual respondents, where there is a research need, and where sample size is sufficient, NCES may elect to expand the ethnicity question to a format to add subcategories, as long as they can be recombined into the basic seven categories.

EXAMPLE 1:
Is this person Hispanic or Latino?
      No, not Hispanic/Latino
      Yes, Mexican, Mexican American, Chicano
      Yes, Puerto Rican
      Yes, Cuban
      Yes, other Spanish/Latino (specify __________)

EXAMPLE 2:
Is this person of Asian descent?
      No
      Yes, Japanese
      Yes, Chinese
      Yes, Korean
      Yes, Pakistani
      Yes, Indian
      Yes, other (specify__________)

In all such cases, the greater detail must be collapsible to the minimum standard.

STANDARD 1-5-3: Aggregated data reported by education institutions about students, faculty, or staff will follow the Department of Education October 2007 final guidance on ethnicity and race data, with implementation scheduled for data collections for the 2010-11 school year. Education institutions were advised to collect information from individuals using the two-question format (see Standard 1-5-2). They were advised to keep full detail on what individuals reported about their own race and ethnicity in their record systems for the length of time specified in the instructions for the data collection. Per the Department guidance, the institutions will report aggregate data on ethnicity and race of their students, faculty, or staff to the Department of Education using the following categories:

Hispanic or Latino, of any race
American Indian or Alaska Native, not Hispanic or Latino
Asian, not Hispanic or Latino
Black, not Hispanic or Latino
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, not Hispanic or Latino
White, not Hispanic or Latino
Two or more races, not Hispanic or Latino

Postsecondary institutions may use two additional categories in their reporting of aggregated race and ethnicity data:

Nonresident alien
Not reported (race and ethnicity unknown)

STANDARD 1-5-4: When reporting data on race and ethnicity in government publications, every effort must be made to use at least the minimal reporting categories, described below, whenever possible. In the case of data collected by NCES from individual respondents, more categories of race combinations or detailed subgroups (see Guideline 1-5-2A) may be used when there are enough cases to support finer detail and there is justification for more categories. However, if there are not enough cases in any individual category of race or Hispanic ethnicity, the data for that category and for the next smallest category must be included in the total but not shown separately, and footnoted as such. Alternatively, if several categories cannot be shown, the combined categories must be reported as an "other" category, and footnoted to describe the exact components.

When using aggregations of race/ethnicity groups, the terms "nonwhite" and "other than White" are not acceptable for use in the presentation of Federal Government data. Similarly, do not identify or designate aggregations of race/ethnicity groups as "minority' groups.

In cases where there are too few cases to report all race/ethnicity groups separately or where there is a justifiable substantive reason to aggregate categories the aggregated category may be labeled using one of the following options:

1. List the names of the categories included in the aggregation (e.g., Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, American Indian);
2. List the name of one of the categories followed by a reference to "Other Races/Ethnicities" (e.g.," Black or African American and Other Races/Ethnicities"); or
3. Uses label "All other Races/Ethnicities"

The following are the desired and minimal reporting categories for race and ethnicity in government publications. The decision rules for each combination of race and ethnicity are shown in italics:

Hispanic/Latino
(This category includes individuals of any race who identify as Hispanic or Latino)

American Indian or Alaska Native
(This category includes only persons who reported American Indian or Alaska Native as their sole race and did not report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.)

Asian
(This category includes only persons who reported Asian as their sole race and did not report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.)

Black or African American
(This category includes only persons who reported Black or African American as their sole race and did not report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.)

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
(This category includes only persons who reported Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander as their sole race and did not report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.)

White
(This category includes only persons who reported White as their sole race and did not report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.)

Two or more races
(This category includes any combination of two or more races and not Hispanic/Latino ethnicity.)

GUIDELINE 1-5-4A: In the text, the names for the groups should be capitalized, per the U.S. Government Printing Office (e.g., White, Black, Asian, etc.).

GUIDELINE 1-5-4B: When the publication contains substantial text, the category names may be abbreviated after the first presentation of the categories. The authors should introduce the shortened version of the category label by saying that the two are used interchangeably in the text.

The following abbreviated names are suggested for use in text or in tables and figures:

American Indian (instead of American Indian or Alaska Native)
Black (instead of Black or African American)
Pacific Islander (instead of Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander)
Hispanic (instead of Hispanic or Latino)

A footnote is needed to describe these "abbreviations" as follows:

American Indian includes Alaska Native, Black includes African American, Pacific Islander includes Native Hawaiian, and Hispanic includes Latino.

STANDARD 1-5-5: Full detail on race and ethnicity as reported to NCES in data collected from individual respondents must be maintained on restricted-access data files and on public-use data files, within the constraints imposed by relevant confidentiality laws and administrative policies (see Standard 4-2).

GUIDELINE 1-5-5A: Survey documentation should describe how race and ethnicity questions were asked. If other than the OMB standard two-question format and seven data categories were used, documentation must include collection format, how imputation and edits were accomplished, and what decisions were made to create aggregation categories.

STANDARD 1-5-6: The changes resulting from the implementation of the1997 revision of the OMB Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 and the 2008 U.S. Department of Education Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the Department of Education involve key variables and survey procedures for this data series. Consistent with NCES Standard 2-5, a plan must be developed that describes adjustment methods, such as crosswalks and bridge studies, that will be used to preserve trend analyses.